Networks of interconnected devices (e.g., computer networks) are often monitored to, for example, ascertain characteristics of network traffic flow of the network. Such monitoring may be implemented via sampling some portion of the network traffic (e.g., packets, frames, etc.) transmitted into, out of, or within the network to ascertain various items of information related to the network traffic. However, such processing may require that one or more processors of a network device in the network perform at least a portion of the activities required for sampling functionality. Such activities may place a workload burden on the processors, which may affect network device performance.